


The Life Adventures of the Omega Pirate Assassin

by TorunnSays412



Series: The Life Adventures of the Omega Pirate Assassin (And His Children) [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Mpreg, only the most important people are tagged there are many more, this loosely follows canon events but also completely ignores timelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 05:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16486742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TorunnSays412/pseuds/TorunnSays412
Summary: Edward joins the Navy when Caroline leaves him, and his life changed for ever with that one decision. Now he's been married twice, has five kids, and isn't quite sure how he ended up with such a wonderful family when everything he's done in his life has lead him to assume he would die young."Whatever the consequences, he made this decision. He’ll see it through. "





	The Life Adventures of the Omega Pirate Assassin

**Author's Note:**

> This idea struck me a year ago and would not leave me alone. I wrote for months on end, in every single bit of free time I had, and ended up with 40 pages for the original idea - and then I added four additional stories on top of that. Finally, after several times being edited, here is the first part to this series that I am only posting now because I am tired and running entirely on a can of Monster, and I should be practicing my speech for class instead.
> 
> Note about A/B/O dynamics: every person's idea of this is different. In this universe, all women can get pregnant and all women can impregnate, but male omegas can also get pregnant and alpha females can also impregnate (and for the most part, they stick to the latter description; it is rare for a female alpha to be the pregnant one in the relationship, etc.) The rest should be explained within the story itself, but feel free to comment any questions you may have on the universe itself.

Edward is seventeen when he meets Caroline, and he falls in love immediately with her beauty and strength. 

He is barely eighteen when their courtship falls apart. 

Caroline can’t handle the disappointment from her parents, in the end, and Edward’s family can’t pull together the expensive dowry they’re requesting for their alpha daughter to marry below her station, not quickly enough. 

“I’m sorry, Edward, I truly am,” she says, touching his hand gently. 

Edward is so stunned he can only watch her walk away. 

A week after she breaks it off, Edward signs up to be a privateer. 

“Edward, I understand you’re heartbroken, but –“ his mother tries to say, the day before he leaves, but he shakes his head. 

“Mother, I can’t stay here. I can’t – I can’t be a farmer for the rest of my life. I want  _ more.  _ I want food that I can stomach eating, I want a roof over my head that won’t leak. I won’t find that here.”

In the end, she steps aside, keeping the rest of her concerns to herself. His father has already accepted it, and Edward thinks Bernard is secretly relieved his son is leaving because Edward can’t make trouble for his parents if he isn’t in the country. 

Omegas normally aren’t found in the Navy, they aren’t privateers, but there are some exceptions. His background as a farmer and his willingness to do anything undesirable lands him a place on a ship bound for the West Indies. He’s male, and male omegas are more tolerable on ships than beta and omega women. Alphas of both genders are the only universally accepted sex. 

Life on the  _ Emperor  _ isn’t easy. The other men think he’s easy because he’s not married and young, although he proves them wrong many times. The more persistent ones learn quickly he is not to be messed with. He may not have any formal training, may barely know how to hold a sword, but he has been fighting in back alleys for half his life and he can fight dirty.

It provides an outlet, and he’s making money that’s all his. It can’t be touched by his parents, and he doesn’t have an alpha to take it from him. Life isn’t perfect, but it’s something.

//

He meets Eagle in Jamaica, in the months before privateering was ended. He’s been at sea for a year now and has been training under Edward Thatch and Benjamin Hornigold for a few months now. He’s sitting in a tavern, drinking, thinking about how his life could have been different if Caroline had stayed with him, when he sees the hooded man in the corner. He watches the man watch the people around him for a little bit, wondering what he’s doing. Edward’s drunk enough that he ignores it and turns back to his drink.

The next day, hungover and reveling in the freedom from his training in the days before his heat, he’s laying on the beach watching the ships drift across the ocean in the distance.  He’s probably been out there too long, beginning to feel drunk on the sun and heat, but it feels so nice he doesn’t want to leave quite yet. 

Finally, he stands, swaying a little as he gets his legs under him, and starts heading to the room he rents from an old woman when he’s not on the ship. He needs some water, and some food. 

He’s so distracted he nearly runs straight into the man from the night before, his white robes now spotted with red, blood dripping down the fingers of his right hand, arm limp. Edward stares at him in shock, heat-addled mind trying to comprehend the scene in front of him. 

Then the man sways, nearly collapsing into Edward’s chest, and Edward surges forward and grabs the man’s uninjured arm, pulling it over his shoulder and forcing him to walk with him towards his room. This is probably stupid, but his mother - ever a good Christian - would hate him if he left this man to his possible death. 

Luckily, his landlord isn’t home to question him on his stupidity, and he hurries the man onto his bed, forcing him to sit. 

There are bandages in the kitchen, and a bottle of rum on the bedside table. He doesn’t know if the man will need stitches, but he grabs a needle and thread just in case. He also grabs the wash basin full of water and some old - clean - rags to wash the blood off.

“Take off your coat,” he tells him. The man stares at him; his hood has fallen back to expose his face, showing what Edward can only assume to be features of a man from somewhere in the far East. There was a family back in England that claimed to be from Jerusalem, and Edward can see similarities between this man and the members of that family.

When he doesn’t move, Edward sighs. “Do you speak English? If you don’t remove it, I can’t treat your wound. Do you want to bleed out?”

Haltingly, the man moves to shrug his outer layers off, and then, wincing, pulls his tunic over his head. Edward has treated many wounds before, both at home in England and in his time on the ship. He feels only clinical interest as he studies the man’s body. 

There’s a cut on his right arm, the cause of the blood, deep enough to warrant stitches. He’s also covered in bruises; he looks like he’s been through a hell of a fight.  The blades that were revealed as he undressed only adds to how dangerous this man could be. The exhaustion he clearly seems to be fighting makes him only slightly less dangerous in Edward’s opinion.

Edward dips the cloth in the water and begins wiping the man’s arm, cleaning it up as best he can before he sets to the task of giving him stitches. This close, he can tell the man is an alpha, another reason this was stupid. An unmarried omega, inviting an unrelated alpha into their bedroom? 

His mother may be proud for helping someone in need, but she would also smack him on the head for having this man in his bed, even under the circumstances. 

Whatever the consequences, he made this decision. He’ll see it through. 

He gives the man the bottle of rum, raising an eyebrow when the alpha stares at him. “Drink,” he says. “This’ll probably hurt.” 

“I do not drink,” the alpha says, the first words he’s said to Edward, his English accented by a language Edward can’t recognize. Arabic, maybe, if Edward’s suspicions are correct. 

“Oh,” is all Edward can say to that. He grabs the bottle and takes a swig for himself. 

After cleaning the cut, he threads the needle and sets to work on the stitches. He doesn’t need that many, luckily, so he finishes quickly and ties it off with a bandage. 

“You’re not going to tell me what you were doing, I’m sure, but I think I deserve a name after this,” Edward says. 

The alpha considers this for several seconds, before finally saying, “Eagle.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Edward says, incredulous, before his manners - the few that remain - can curb his tongue. 

The alpha – Eagle, for lack of anything better – only looks at him. 

“Alright, fine,” Edward concedes. “Are you injured anywhere else?”

“My back,” Eagle says, and Edward has to sit behind the alpha on the bed to reach the cut there, cleaning and then stitching it as well. He can hear his mother saying something impolite about alphas like Eagle, the ones who get in trouble and cause trouble, which is what Eagle is judging by the numerous scars all over his chest, back, and arms.

“Thank you,” Eagle says. Edward waves him off, picking up the supplies he used and taking them out to the kitchen to start cleaning up. By the time he comes back, Eagle is gone, leaving only a few coins behind, as if he needed to pay Edward for making sure he didn’t bleed out and die in a street somewhere. 

He sees the alpha around a few times, but they never acknowledge each other, each going about his own business, although each time Edward’s curiosity grows.

//

The next time Edward talks to him, it’s after privateering has ended in the West Indies. He’s well into his career as a pirate, endlessly searching for the wealth and fame he craves, and he’s in Havana as the crew stops to resupply. 

His captain isn’t a bad one – he doesn’t have a problem with Edward being an omega, which is rare in his line of work. He’s also more than willing to let Edward off the ship for his biannual heats, although Edward suspects that’s out of self-preservation than anything else. With so many alphas surrounding him, it would be very messy if he were to go into heat on the ship. It’s easier to do whatever possible to avoid it.

The captain uses the opportunity to resupply and give the men a break, and never makes the event into a scene. 

Edward has just paid for a room from the man who runs the general store, a kind, elderly beta who has a soft spot for him because he reminds him of his lost son. Edward can’t complain, because he gets a discount in the store because of it. 

It’s as he’s walking out of the store that he sees Eagle. The alpha is perched on the rooftop of the house in front of Edward, turned away and watching someone that Edward can’t see. He frowns, but he doesn’t say anything to alert Eagle to his presence. He may not know what’s going on, but he’s not stupid. 

Instead, he sits on a nearby bench and watches. Whoever Eagle is following, they must not be moving, because he stays perched on the rooftop for a while before he seems satisfied and turns to climb down from the roof. He vanishes from sight for a minute, then appears next to Edward and takes a seat on the bench next to him. 

“I’m gonna ask why the fuck you were on the roof, even though you probably won’t answer,” Edward says. 

Eagle takes a long moment to think. “I was gathering information.”

“Were you gathering information that night I stitched you up?”

“Yes and no.”

Edward studies the man next to him, thinking. He has so many questions, but he knows they won’t be answered today. “You didn’t have to pay me.” But it was appreciated.

“You did not have to help me.”

“Fair point.”

The entire conversation, when Edward goes over it later, does nothing to help him figure out the other man’s story.

//

The next time they meet, Eagle’s on the verge of falling into rut, and he also saves Edward’s life. Whatever Eagle had been doing, it caused a lot of people to be angry, and a lot of those people had guns. Edward, for once doing nothing unsavory, just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time, and it was only Eagle popping up out of nowhere and dragging Edward down that saved him from being shot in the chest. 

Edward’s panting, adrenaline surging through his veins. “Normally, when I’m being shot at, I deserve it.”

“This is my fault, I apologize.” Eagle even looks guilty. 

“I think I deserve a name now,” Edward says, although he doesn’t think he’ll actually get one. They still barely know each other, and he never told Eagle his own name, although he suspects the alpha knows it anyway.

He’s wrong. Eagle glances around, then helps Edward to his feet and pulls him in the opposite direction of where Edward was headed. “I will answer your questions, if you wait until we are safe.”

They go to what Edward can only guess is where Eagle has been staying. The room is saturated in the alpha’s scent, and it’s as stark as the man himself. The bed is made, and the only physical evidence of anyone living there is a stack of letters sitting neatly on the desk, a half-melted candle next to them, and the lack of dust. 

Eagle sits on the edge of the bed, and Edward takes the desk chair, straddling it backwards and draping his arms over the back. He waits for Eagle to speak. 

“My name is Umar,” he finally says. “I am a member of a secret organization. We fight to protect the freedom of humanity. That fight can sometimes be . . . bloody.”

Edward wants to laugh, because this is the most ridiculous explanation he’s ever heard for anything, but he has to admit that even the vague wording explains a lot. It explains the secrecy, the fight Umar had clearly been in their first meeting, the scars across the other man’s body.

He asks more questions and gets more vague answers. Umar is from somewhere in the Ottoman Empire – he wouldn’t give specifics – and was living in Spain before he was sent to the West Indies to help with the construction of a new chapter of his secret organization. The day he met Edward, he had just finished a successful mission that easily could have gone wrong. 

“We were given bad information, they knew I was coming,” Umar says grimly. 

They’ve been talking for a while. Umar’s scent is beginning to get to him, heavy in the air. He smells  _ good.  _ Rationally, he knows it’s the alpha’s rut appealing to his omega instincts. 

On the other hand, he is a pirate. And pirates take what they want and damn the consequences.

It doesn’t surprise him, the next day, when Edward wakes up in Umar’s bed. It does surprise him, weeks later, when he’s back on the ship and not feeling well. He’s never been seasick before, but now he’s constantly feeling nauseous and vomiting over the side of the ship. 

His crewmates avoid him, thinking he’s sick, and even the captain tries to isolate him until he realizes that Edward isn’t showing any signs of actual sickness. 

He’s tired, as well, but he thinks nothing of it. He often ends up on the deck late at night, taking the shift   nobody else wants, so he loses sleep easily. Sometimes he feels achy, but he puts that down to his upcoming heat. 

//

He doesn’t realize anything is wrong until he’s on land, back in Havana, for his second heat of the year, only for it to never come. 

Edward doesn’t miss heats, he never has. He can time them almost to the hour that they will begin. 

The only explanation he could have for this – is impossible. It couldn’t have happened. 

He finds Umar days after his suspicions are confirmed. After seeing a healer, he decides to stay in Havana until he came up with a plan. All he knew was he couldn’t risk being on a ship, days away from the nearest port.

Umar must be on a mission, because he isn’t there when Edward stops by. He leaves a note with Umar’s landlord and returns to his own room to wait. 

It’s three days before Umar shows up at his door. The alpha is clearly confused but trying to hide it as he greets Edward. 

Edward had a plan for telling him, but seeing Umar in person causes him to forget, and in a moment of panic, his mouth opens and out comes, “I’m pregnant.”

Umar’s eyes widen, and Edward nearly slaps himself because he can hear his mother scolding him for his lack of tact. He can also hear his mother scolding him for getting in this situation at all, although part of him isn’t surprised. If anything, he’s surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. 

The problem is, Edward forgot one crucial thing about being a male omega. He could only get pregnant during his heat, usually, but an alpha’s rut can also increase the chances of pregnancy. It’s one of the perks of being male, because omega women can get pregnant any time, whether they’re in heat or not. 

“What will you do?” Umar finally asks once he seems to have recovered. 

“I don’t know. Jaysus, I have nowhere to go. Even if I could get a pardon from the pirating, my parents would never accept me, not with a child out of wedlock, and I don’t want to go back anyways. There’s a reason I left.” Edward sits down on the bed, feeling exhausted. 

Umar sits beside him hesitantly. “I am returning to Spain in a week. If you would allow it, I can arrange passage for you as well.”

“You would want me there? I’m not a good person, Umar, you have to have realized that by now.”

“It is my fault you are pregnant. I will take responsibility for it, if you want me.” Umar thinks for a moment before adding, “And I am not a good person either, Edward. You do not know the full extent of what I have done. Your own past will not stop me.” 

Edward sighs, but there’s truly no decision to make. He can’t raise this baby alone, and he can’t go home, so he might as well follow Umar to Spain. He’s done stupider things in his lifetime. Going to the country Britain had been at war with less than a year ago can just be added to the list.

“Alright. Let’s go to Spain.”

//

Seven months pass way too slowly, in Edward’s opinion. He spends his time learning about the Assassin Brotherhood – which is spread around the world and has so many members he’s not sure how it stays a secret – and acquainting himself with Jaén, the city just outside the base of operations for the Brotherhood in Spain. 

When he isn’t doing that, he’s forcing himself to remember everything his mother taught him all those years ago about keeping a household. He ends up doing most of the cooking, and Umar had started a small vegetable garden once, only to neglect it as he left for missions. Edward takes it upon himself to bring it back to life, giving him something to focus on beyond his situation. 

A part of him hates it, and another part of him doesn’t mind. He always knew he would end up here, if he wasn’t killed at sea. He takes comfort in the fact that Umar is a far better alpha than he expected he would end up with, and his home is far sturdier and cleaner than what he would have found back in Britain. He makes it his job to keep it that way, although there are days he wishes he were still at sea. 

Umar is often away on missions, so Edward is alone often. He meets a woman, Alima, whose husband is a fellow Assassin of Umar’s. She’s also pregnant, so she and Edward have a lot in common just from that, and when Edward isn’t wandering the city or working on something at home, he finds himself at her house.

Her son is born just days before Edward is due, so he learns from her (admittedly few) mistakes with baby Malik and tries not to panic. 

Overall, when the baby actually comes after eight hours of incredibly painful labor, he is more qualified than he was at the beginning of his pregnancy, but he still doesn’t feel ready to be a parent even as the midwife hands him his son. 

The baby is tiny, skin an angry red as he cries and adjusts to being alive. Umar is let into the room as the baby begins to nurse, and he sits on the bed next to Edward and watches. 

“We didn’t think of names,” Edward says quietly, eyes never leaving his son. 

“Altaïr,” Umar responds, without hesitation. The confidence in his voice causes Edward to tear his gaze from the baby and look up at him with a frown. 

“Where did that come from?” he asks.

“It means flying eagle.”

Umar is lucky Edward’s holding a nursing baby because he would be bruised from Edward’s fist otherwise. 

He doesn’t tell Umar, but the name does fit the child. It sticks, as much as Edward hates to think it.

They live in relative calm for less than two years, with Umar continuing his missions and Edward doing everything he can to forget the life he left behind for his son. Altaïr keeps him plenty distracted, because as he grows up he becomes more adventurous, and it seems his goal is to give Edward a heart attack at twenty-one.  

//

Edward made the decision to follow Umar based on two things: desperation, and a lack of other options. 

Falling in love with the alpha was never one of those reasons.

Umar is the complete opposite of Caroline. She had been a proper Alpha woman, raised by noble parents, and did what was expected of her. The most rebellious thing she had ever done was court Edward, a farmer’s son, and that didn’t last. Umar is an Assassin, raised within the Brotherhood as an orphan, and followed his mentor from the Ottoman Empire to Spain when he was on the cusp of adulthood. He was a dangerous man, exactly the kind Edward’s parents would have warned him away from.

Seeing him with baby Altaïr, the care with which Umar held him and spoke to his son, and how he treated Edward, never expecting anything more than Edward was willing to give, were only two of the reasons he stayed.

//

He and Umar mate after Altaïr turns one. 

They don’t really think about it, or talk about it, they both just  _ know  _ it is the right thing to do. For Edward, the mark shows he has a place to belong to, that he had found his home. For Umar, it was a sign of the protection he was giving to his love and his son, because as long as Umar was around nobody would dare harm Edward and Altaïr. 

//

It’s just after Altaïr’s second birthday that everything falls apart. 

Somehow, the Navy figures out he’s in Spain, and they decide to come after him because he’s still labeled a pirate. Somehow they track down Umar’s house – which should have been impossible. 

The only reason they don’t find him is because he had taken Altaïr to Alima and Faheem’s house. 

Umar is home, though, and when he answers the door to two British naval officers, he’s smart enough to realize what’s going on. He lies, says that he doesn’t know an Edward Kenway, but his line of work takes him to northern Spain often and there may be someone there fitting the description. 

It gives Edward days to prepare. 

“I can’t stay here,” Edward says when Umar tells him that night, after Altaïr has been put to bed. 

“I know, Edward.” Umar is sitting at the table, watching Edward pace the small kitchen. 

“But can I – I don’t know if I can leave, Umar. Altaïr –“

“Is old enough to survive without his mother for a few years, Edward.” Umar stands, puts his hands on Edward’s arms and forces the omega to still. “I would rather you be absent than be hanged for your past.”

Edward’s head falls onto Umar’s shoulder, and the alpha’s arms slide down his arms to rest against his back. They remain in this position for several minutes, each thinking their own thoughts, before they finally separate and create a plan. 

They are already mated, but marriage is another form of commitment, another legal form of attachment and protection that is easy enough to go through with.

Edward marries Umar in what could be considered the smallest and dullest ceremony ever, just to ensure Altaïr will be placed in Edward’s care should anything happen to Umar, and an extra form of protection in giving the omega a new surname should he decide to use it. Alima promises to watch Altaïr when Umar needs to leave for missions, and Edward promises to write as he says goodbye at the port. 

Altaïr is crying in his arms, because even as young as he is he understands his mother is leaving, and Edward never realized how hard it was to leave behind a child. After Caroline, he never thought he would have a child. 

This may not have been the family he expected, but he would die before his mistakes caused them harm. 

For days after leaving port, his son’s cries haunt him. He doesn’t know when the next time he’ll see Altaïr will be, if he ever sees him again. The thought scares him more than he ever thought it would.

//

The West Indies haven’t changed much over the years. His ship docks in Havana, and it isn’t long before he finds his old crew, still hanging around the same tavern. It isn’t hard to find the captain and give him a made-up story to explain his near three-year long absence. 

It isn’t hard to fall back into pirating. It’s all he knows, right now. 

Of course, even that can’t stay the same, and two months is all he gets before the captain dies while attacking the vessel they’re passing. Edward barely manages to save himself in the shitstorm that follows. 

He washes up on an island, thirsty and disoriented. Debris litters the beach around him, and it looks like he’s the only one who made it out alive. 

At least, until he twists around to see a man, wearing similar robes to Umar’s, sprawled across the sand. 

Edward manages to get to his feet, and stumbles towards the man. The possible-Assassin stands up, one hand against his side where blood is spilling out from between his fingers, and in his other hand is a pistol, pointing straight at Edward. 

“If you can get me to Havana, pirate, I’ll pay you handsomely,” the man says, and Edward is almost surprised by the English accent. 

“I can get you to Havana, sure,” Edward says, hands up to placate the man. He thinks of Altaïr, and if anything happens to Umar, Edward needs to be sure he can take care of his son. “I want payment in advance,” he continues, taking several steps forward, and the man’s eyes widen and his finger tightens around the pistol, firing. 

Nothing happens. The powder is wet from the man’s time in the sea. 

The man turns and runs. Edward takes chase, following the man across the island through the trees, grateful for his time on ships where he spent plenty of time in the rigging. He catches up quickly and doesn’t truly feel guilty for killing the man in the fight that ensues. 

He actually feels a bit better when he checks the man’s pockets and finds a letter, confirming his suspicion that this man – Duncan Walpole – was an Assassin, but it also shows that Walpole was defecting to the Templars. 

He may not have any stake in the Assassin-Templar war, but he is curious and desperate for wealth, so he strips Walpole and dons the Assassin robes himself. He tucks the letter back into his pocket and makes sure the rectangular prism intended for payment is safe next to the letter. 

Edward’s attention is drawn by shouting, and he hides in the bushes near the beach to see soldiers harassing a merchant, looking for those responsible for the battle Edward had been part of. 

Edward saves the merchant, gives Walpole’s name as his own, and gets passage to Havana. All in all, things seem to be going well for him. 

//

He’s lucky, when he reaches Havana, that his natural omega scent is covered by the filth that comes from being at sea, and Walpole’s own scent still clings to the robes he wears. Walpole had been a beta, so it isn’t hard to fake it as long as Edward’s own scent is masked. His mate mark is low enough on his neck that the robes mostly cover it.

When he’s walking with Torres, going to meet the so-called Sage who could lead them to the Observatory’s location, he wonders if this counts as betraying his husband. He’s not really a Templar, and he’s not even really an Assassin, and he’s only playing along until he can figure out how to capitalize on this.  

He plays his part. He kills the Assassins and feels guilty for it. He gets paid. But it’s not enough. 

Bonnet, the merchant he had saved, didn’t seem to understand what Edward was truly saying, but once Edward’s mind was set on something, he couldn’t be convinced otherwise. He goes to talk to the Sage, find out more about the Observatory.

His stubbornness is why he gets into so much trouble, because of course the Templars figure it out, and of course he ends up imprisoned on a ship heading towards England. 

Luckily he meets Adéwalé, escapes, and he ends up with his own ship. All in all, a good day in Edward’s book. 

//

After killing Julien du Casse – he may not be an Assassin, but he does recognize it’s not a good thing to leave the man alive with the knowledge that Edward was still in the West Indies – James Kidd finds him on the beach. 

“Good job, Kenway,” he says. 

Edward grunts, looking out at the sea. His mind isn’t on Kidd’s appearance, it’s on Altaïr, and how guilty he feels to be away from his son. It’s for the best – this way Altaïr is safe from Edward’s past – but that doesn’t make it easier. 

“Where’s your mind at?” Kidd asks, sitting beside Edward.

Edward is silent for a long moment, listening to the waves lap against the beach. Too long, apparently, because Kidd glances at him and says, “This have anything to do with why you vanished for three years?”

Edward knows his absence was noted, and he shouldn’t be surprised Kidd knew of it, but he still sighs. He at least trusts Kidd, and with something like this he doesn’t think Kidd will react too rashly. Kidd is the calmest of all the pirates he knows.

“You ever think about kids?” Edward finally says.

If Kidd is surprised by the question, he doesn’t show it, only shakes his head. “Not really. In our line of work, it doesn’t make sense.”

Edward glances at him, waiting for him to connect the dots. 

A small sound escapes Kidd’s mouth as he realizes. “You got out. You have a – what, you have a family now?” Kidd’s sitting on the opposite side of Edward’s mate mark, and this is the first time they’ve truly talked since Edward’s been back.

Edward laughs a little. “I guess so. It wasn’t planned, just sort of happened. When I found out, I told the father and we went to Spain. I only came back because the Navy found me, and I figured it was force my son to see me taken by them or leave on my own and keep him safe.”

“If they had taken you, you could have gotten a pardon. Or tried to, people don’t like hanging mothers.”

“I couldn’t take that chance.”

Kidd studies him for a moment. “Follow me. I want to show you something that I think will interest you.”

Kidd shows him a Mayan stela, deep in the jungle, and then some armor locked up in the du Casse manor. Then he leaves, after requesting Edward meet him in Tulum in several weeks.

Standing on the beach, weeks later, he recognizes the guards patrolling as Assassins. Their robes are too similar to Umar’s – and Edward’s, because he’s still wearing Walpole’s robes – and every now and then he sees a glint of silver as the Assassins check their hidden blades. 

“What have you gotten me into, Kidd?” he whispers, before he begins sneaking around the guards. He won’t kill the Assassins, that’s definitely crossing a line, and he doesn’t think Umar would be happy with him if he ever found out. It’s bad enough he killed the ones coming after the Sage.

When he finally finds Kidd, he’s with Ah Tabai, the mentor of the Brotherhood here. The events that follow – Kidd defending Edward, identifying Roberts the Sage in the temple, and then saving the Assassins and his crew from the Templars – leave Edward drained and wanting nothing more than to be back in Spain. 

He helps Kidd go after Prins, searching for the Sage, Kidd reveals herself as a woman, and they lose Roberts. 

After the ensuing fight, Edward glances at Kidd. “Can I have your real name then?”

“Mary Read,” she says after a beat. “But if you tell anyone – “

“As long as you don’t spread word of the son I’m hiding, I won’t spread word of this. You can trust me, Mary.” Edward gives her a small smile. 

//

The next few years pass slowly, and quickly at the same time. He feels the absence of his family with each passing day, and he helps the Assassins, searches for the Observatory, and tries to build up some sort of wealth to make all this worth it. 

He loses friends. Blackbeard, Mary. Adéwalé leaves him for the Assassins, disgusted with his captain’s desperation for wealth. He’s missed four of Altaïr’s birthdays. 

He kills Torres, seals the Observatory with the Assassins, and makes the decision to return to Spain within the same day. 

“It’s too hard,” Edward tells Ah Tabai later, when the man invites him to stay with the Assassins. “I miss my family. I came out here to protect them, and I did so much more than that, but I’m willing to face the consequences if it means I can see them again.”

Ah Tabai studies him for a moment. “You are speaking of the consequences of pirating.”

“What else?”

“You have done good work here, Edward. I may be able to help you with the issue of a pardon, and I expect to see you involved with the Assassins in London.”

“Actually, I’ll be going to Spain.”

That causes Ah Tabai to glance at him sharply. “Spain? Where would you have met anyone from –“

“Did I forget to mention that I met my husband here? And that he’s an Assassin?”

“You are the one Umar spoke of?” Ah Tabai’s voice, normally level, is starting to rise with shock. 

After that, any doubt Ah Tabai had about helping Edward is seemingly gone, and he leaves Edward with the promise that he would not meet him again until he had good news for him. 

Edward takes the time to settle everything in the West Indies. He gives up the  _ Jackdaw,  _ says goodbye to the people he’ll miss, and writes letters that needed writing long ago. 

He’s kept in contact with his parents, barely, knows his father disowned him the moment rumors spread of him turning to pirating. He also knows his father died nearly four years ago. He knows his mother has been struggling to pay the bills since then, and he had tried sending money before, only to receive a letter back that says she won’t accept it. 

He never told Linette about Altaïr or Umar. He thinks he was scared of her reaction when she learned he had a child out of wedlock, and another part believed telling her meant he would have to go back to England. But now, he misses his family, and his mother is included in that. She deserves to know about her grandson. 

Still, it takes him far too long to write the letter. 

When he finally does, explaining why it took him six years to tell her he was married and had a son, he feels worse than he did before he wrote it, but he ends it with an address in Spain for her to reach him at and sends it. 

Then he writes another letter to Umar, telling him he’d hopefully be coming soon. This is the shortest of the letters he ends up writing. 

The last letter is to his son, which is essentially several long paragraphs of him apologizing for leaving in the first place. He never asked how Altaïr had taken the explanation of why Edward was leaving, so he doesn’t know what he’ll be walking back into.

Ah Tabai finds him a couple weeks later, and hands him a letter. “I contacted Robert Walpole, Duncan’s cousin. He is very thankful for you taking care of Duncan all those years ago, and he has given you your pardon. You are free to return to England, and you can go to your family without any fear of the Navy coming for you.”

“I – thank you. You didn’t have to do that for me.” Edward tucks the letter into his pocket after glancing at the contents. 

Ah Tabai shakes his head. “Umar is a good man, Edward. And I know he and your son miss you. This was the least I could do after everything you have done for us here.”

//

Spain, when he finally returns to it, hasn’t changed much. Stepping off the ship, the port smells and looks the same, and he can even see some of the same people that had been here the day he left, all those years ago. 

He walks through the city by himself, taking in the sights, smells, and sounds of a place he had come to think of as home, something he hadn’t thought he would ever have after losing Caroline and leaving Britain behind. 

He finds transportation to Jaén, an elderly man willing to bring him there in exchange for Edward’s protection on the road. Within a couple days, he is standing in the city he left behind four years ago.

Umar’s home is just outside of the Assassin’s base, close enough to be involved, but far enough to keep his privacy. Edward feels nausea build up as he comes closer, terrified of what he’ll find behind the door. 

He never makes it to the door, though, because a streak of white comes flying up the street and he has to drop his bags as a small body throws itself into his arms. 

“Mamá!” the body cries, and oh, Jaysus, he hasn’t heard that voice for years, hasn’t held his child since he was a toddler screaming for him to come back. 

Edward hitches Altaïr higher up his body, burying his face in the boy’s neck. “Oh, Altaïr, I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, Mamá,” Altaïr mumbles - in English -  into Edward’s collar. “Please don’t leave again.”

“I won’t, I promise,” Edward swears. “Mama’s here to stay.”

“Altaïr!” Edward looks up to see a woman rushing towards them, a toddler on her hip. “What has your father told you about running off like that?” Edward’s Arabic is rusty, but he smiles because he’s so grateful to even hear the language again after so long of thinking he would die at sea.

Alima Al-Sayf barely seems to notice Edward as she stares Altaïr down. 

“But – “

“Don’t you dare, young man. Your father trusted me to keep you out of trouble, and I will not tolerate you disrespecting the both of us. And rushing off like that without even a warning –“ The fight drains out of her once she realizes Edward is there, and her hand covers her mouth as shock overcomes her. 

“It’s great to see you again, Alima,” he says - in Spanish, he’s not going try and drag the rest of his Arabic back to the surface right now - with a bright smile. “I hope Altaïr hasn’t been too much trouble for you.” At the sound of his name, Altaïr squirms out of Edward’s arms and stands next to him, instead holding Edward’s hand.

“Oh, Edward,” she whispers, and tears spring to her eyes. “Umar said you were coming back, but I was so worried, and then we hadn’t heard anything – “

“Take a breath, Alima, there’s plenty of time now for catching up.” Edward reaches out and places a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s start with who this is,” he adds, nodding to the boy she’s carrying. 

“Oh! This is Kadar, my youngest,” she says, shifting the boy for Edward to see his face. Wide blue eyes stare back at Edward, and he smiles gently at the kid. 

“He looks a lot like you,” he tells Alima. She tilts her head in silent thanks.

“You must be tired,” Alima says. “Take your son and go home,” she adds, nodding to the house. “I will tell Umar you are home when he comes by for Altaïr.”

“Thank you, Alima,” Edward says, grateful she could still be considered his friend. She smiles, turns one last stern look on Altaïr, and turns to leave. 

“How did you know I was here?” Edward asks his son as Alima vanishes from sight. Altaïr looks up with eyes that are far too intelligent for a boy his age. 

“Señora Al-Sayf and I were walking to her house and I saw you coming up the street.”

He was really asking how Altaïr recognized him, how he knew Edward was his mother at all. Instead of saying this, Edward sighs and heads toward the house. 

The inside is just as familiar as the rest of the city. The same tan walls, old furniture, a small, clean kitchen. Two bedrooms are at the end of the hall, and Edward would very much like to take a nap, but he sets his bags down and vows to spend some time with his son first. 

That’s how Umar finds them, hours later, asleep on each other. Altaïr had wedged himself next to Edward on the sofa and ended up falling asleep with his head on his lap. Edward had stayed awake for longer, thinking about everything his son had told him – like his “rivalry” with Malik, the training he was going through. Mostly, Altaïr spoke about Malik. 

Eventually, though, his exhaustion overcomes him, and he falls asleep as well. 

Umar wakes him up when he gets home, looking older than Edward remembered, but the slight smile on his face is genuine. “I am glad you are home, Edward, but you will regret this in the morning,” he says quietly, and Edward groans slightly because he already does. Umar presses his forehead to Edward’s, and the omega relaxes slightly. 

“I’m sorry I left,” he whispers. Umar presses a kiss to his cheek and shakes his head. 

“We will talk in the morning. For now, go to bed.”

Edward does as he asks. 

That’s how they spend the next five years, in what is the closest thing Edward has ever felt to domestic bliss. He spends time with his son and his husband, goes out on missions for the Assassins a couple times a year, writes his mother. Life is as perfect as could be expected.

//

Alima passes away in childbirth three years after Edward returns. The child doesn’t make it, and Kadar is inconsolable for weeks after his mother’s death. Malik is old enough to understand what happened, and he hides his grief better than his brother, but Edward still does his best to take care of the both of them like Alima cared for Altaïr. 

Nothing can last forever, however, and at the five-year mark things fall apart again. 

Edward is on a mission in Madrid, gathering information instead of an assassination for once. He comes back the day after it happened and doesn’t get the news until he runs into Malik looking for Altaïr. 

“Señor Ibn-La’Ahad, you have to come quick!” Malik grabs his hand and pulls, and his face is properly terrified. 

“What? Why? Malik, calm down, what happened?” Edward puts his hands on Malik’s shoulders, forcing the boy to still and look at him. 

“Señor Ibn-La’Ahad was – he was – “ Malik whines a little. “He was executed yesterday! Altaïr saw it, and then – and then the Mentor took Altaïr into his room and I haven’t seen him since!”

Edward feels faint. “Executed? For what?”

“I don’t know, Señor Ibn-La’Ahad, we have to find Altaïr!”

Malik takes off running towards the center of the stronghold, and Edward follows, ignoring his fellow Assassins as they stare. His marriage to Umar was no secret, he can only imagine what they’re thinking right now. 

All he is thinking about is his son. He can grieve later. 

Malik is panting when they reach Al Mualim’s door. Edward grabs Malik’s arm and says, “Go find your brother, Malik. I’ll come to you when I have Altaïr.”

“Señor– “

“Go, Malik.”

Malik goes. Edward knocks on the door when he’s gone, and barely gives the Mentor time to respond before he’s barging in. 

“Ah, Edward,” Al Mualim says. “I was expecting you.”

Altaïr is sitting on the floor in front of a bookcase. His eyes are bloodshot, but his face is dry for the moment as he looks up at his mother. Edward hurries to him and gathers him up in his arms, soothing the boy as he starts to shake. 

“Umar – “ Al Mualim begins to say, and Edward surprises himself and Altaïr when a growl is ripped from his throat at the sound of the Mentor’s voice. His omega instincts, his instincts as a mother, are overriding all sense right now. Al Mualim shuts his mouth, then mutters something about omegas under his breath as he turns to his desk. 

The next few hours pass in a haze. Al Mualim hands Edward a sealed envelope with a blank face, and Edward takes Altaïr and brings him to the Al-Sayf home, so Malik can see Altaïr with his own eyes and give Edward some time to process. 

He reads the letter there, which turns out to be from Umar, written not in Spanish or Arabic, like almost everything here is, but in English, something only a few people in the Spanish Brotherhood could read and fully understand. It explains how Umar’s last mission had an unexpected casualty, and it angered the wrong people. They came with a small army, wanting blood, and peace could only come with Umar’s death. Al Mualim refused at first, only for the man on the other side to force his hand and threaten to kill Ahmad Sofian, a spy that had been discovered. Al Mualim allowed Umar to give himself up to save Ahmad. 

The letter ended with Umar apologizing, and then – 

_ You cannot stay here, Edward. Al Mualim wants Altaïr too strongly, and you are standing in his way. He will make Altaïr into something he is not, something worse than an Assassin. I believe my influence is all that has held Al Mualim back, but he will disrespect your wishes as Altaïr’s mother. I have seen it before. _

_ I have a friend in Italy who can help you go anywhere you want. His name is Giovanni Auditore. He is a member of the Brotherhood in Italy, and I have already sent a letter explaining the situation to him. Please, Edward. Take Altaïr and go, at least for a little while. It is for the best. _

_ I go towards my death unburdened, because I am atoning for my mistakes, and my life has been better with you and our son in it.  _

Edward wipes away tears he hadn’t realized had been falling and glances up at his son. Altaïr is sitting at the table, glaring down at the grain of the wood while Malik and Kadar sit quietly beside him. 

He never really trusted Al Mualim. After Ah Tabai, it had been hard to adjust to the cold nature of the Mentor. He hadn’t been happy when Edward had returned with his new skills, but Edward hadn’t thought much of it because Edward avoided spending any time alone with the man. 

Al Mualim had some outdated views on omegas, which, although rarely expressed, were still constantly there staring Edward in the face. It made civil conversation difficult when the other person thinks omegas aren’t worth their respect.

He believes Umar, though. Altaïr, in the past few years, has shown remarkable skills in training for a boy his age. It’s a point of contention between he and Malik, and Umar often commented in the privacy of their bedroom that he wouldn’t be surprised if Altaïr advanced through the ranks incredibly quickly when given the chance.   

“He will be better than the both of us combined,” Umar would say. Edward couldn’t help but agree. 

But then there is the matter of this Italian Assassin. Umar had never mentioned him before, although Umar met a lot of people, and traveled further than most Assassins. Does this mean Edward can trust Giovanni Auditore when he supposedly can’t even trust the Mentor?

“Malik, where is your father?” Edward asks, folding the letter and hiding it in his pocket. Maybe Faheem could shed some light on the situation.

“He left early this morning, but I don’t know where. I haven’t seen him all day.”

“Alright. Alright, Altaïr, say goodbye, let’s go home.” Edward stands and rubs a hand over his eyes, exhausted. “Goodbye, Malik, Kadar. Take care of each other.”

He stands outside, staring up at the night sky, and waits for Altaïr to follow. The boy is silent on the walk home, and it isn’t until they’re standing in the kitchen that he finally says, “What now, Mamá?”

The sadness in his voice breaks Edward’s heart. He pulls Altaïr in and holds him while he cries, and wonders if he’s making the right decision when he says, “We leave.” 

They board a ship within days, headed towards Italy. 

//

Altaïr doesn’t like sailing, Edward figures out quickly. He’s terrified of the water and is often seasick. He adjusts eventually, but it makes the early days at sea incredibly difficult, and Edward is relieved when they make port near Rome. 

His relief doesn’t last.

Umar, in all his wisdom, had forgotten to tell Edward where Giovanni Auditore lived beyond Italy, so his only hope is to find the Brotherhood and hope they can point him in the right direction. 

He also cannot speak Italian. His Spanish is near perfect, and his Arabic was passable thanks to Umar and Alima, while Altaïr was fluent in both languages as well as English. Neither of them can speak Italian. It makes the search for Giovanni Auditore incredibly difficult.

He starts in Rome, asking around discreetly and hoping Spanish is similar enough to Italian, and that they know enough English, that eventually he can find his way. He eventually finds a woman who advises him, in broken Spanish, to go north towards Florence.

He manages to find someone traveling that way, an alpha woman and her daughter, and he pays them with nearly all the money he has left on him to let them join. They must look desperate enough, because the alpha barely hesitates before agreeing. The woman’s English is remarkably good and makes the trip tolerable. 

Florence is smaller than Rome, thankfully, so it doesn’t take him as long to find the Auditore home. Enough people seem to know the name that, using the little Italian he’s picked up, and filling in the rest with whatever language seems to fit, that everyone can point him in the general direction.

He knocks on the door of the palazzo with a heavy heart, hoping he made the right decision, and keeps his hand firmly on Altaïr’s shoulder. 

The man who opens the door must be Giovanni, and his suspicions are confirmed when the man tilts his head and says, “Signor Ibn-La’Ahad?”

Edward nods slowly, relieved he found the house and also impressed this man pronounced his name correctly. Even in Spain, where he was surrounded by people who knew Umar, people often said it incorrectly, especially the Spaniards. “Come in, then, please,” Giovanni says in English, stepping back and gesturing them in. Edward pushes Altaïr in before him, then follows. 

They’re in a grand sitting room, dark wood and rich red decorating the place. Giovanni gestures for them to sit, then steps away toward the rest of the house and calls out something in Italian. 

“My wife will be here shortly,” he says. “You’ve probably guessed, but my name is Giovanni. I was a close friend of Umar’s. We helped each other often, although I admit we fell out of touch in the last few years.”

A woman appears in the doorway then, dark hair pulled into an elaborate bun at the back of her head. She tells her husband something in Italian, then turns to Edward and inclines her head. “I am Maria Auditore. I am pleased to meet you, although I wish it were not under these circumstances.” 

Edward is surprised they both speak English so well. In Spain, most couldn’t speak the language at all, except for the few Assassins who had picked it up along the way, and he hadn’t met many who knew anything beyond the basics here in Italy. 

“I am terribly sorry for your loss,” Giovanni says. “It is unfortunate what happened caused you to flee. However, we will be more than happy to help you in any way we can. 

“But let’s not speak of this now,” he continues. “You must be tired. We have a room prepared, believing you would come. You are welcome to it for as long as you would like it.” 

“Thank you, Señor Auditore,” Edward says. “And you as well, Señora.”

“Come,” Maria says with a gentle smile. “I will show you your room.”

He and Altaïr are sharing the room – temporarily, Maria explains -  a plan which Edward finds no fault with. He would rather Altaïr be close to him in this foreign country. 

A few days pass like that, with Edward and Altaïr recovering from their journey and dealing with their grief, although neither does it very well. Edward manages to avoid drinking too heavily, for the sake of his son, but Altaïr is too similar to him and finds nearly destructive ways to let out his grief. Edward can barely find the words to apologize to Maria for the few pillows that have been torn apart in Altaïr’s anger.

It’s hard, though, because he feels tired often. Achy. If he didn’t know better, he would say he was nearing his heat, because he definitely isn’t pregnant. But his heat shouldn’t come for a few more weeks, so he decides it’s the grief messing with him.

//

Giovanni and Maria mostly leave them alone, instead busying themselves with their own lives. Edward tries to help Maria around the house a few times, but she only stops him with a gentle hand and a soft look, pushing him towards his son. 

A week after they’ve arrived, however, she pulls Edward aside and urges him to sit down next to the fire, handing him a steaming cup of tea. “I hope you’re adjusting well,” she says quietly, sipping her own tea. 

“As well as could be expected,” Edward responds, and waits until she asks for whatever it is she wants. 

“I understand you’re going through a difficult time,” Maria says. “I hate to ask you, you are just settling in, and we barely know each other. We must be prepared, however, for every scenario, so I must ask.”

“You won’t offend me, Maria.” She had insisted he drop the formalities the second day of their stay.

She takes a long a sip of her tea, then, steeling her nerves, she looks Edward in the eye. “When was the last time you went into heat?”

Edward nearly spits out his tea but manages to swallow with minimal coughing. Maria looks horrified and he quickly goes to reassure her. “I’m not offended, Maria, Jaysus, you just surprised me is all.”

Then he thinks back. His last heat was just before Altaïr’s birthday, nearly five months ago. Assuming his cycle stays on track, he should have three or four weeks until he needs to worry. 

He tells Maria that, and something passes over her face before she can stop it. 

“Edward,  _ caro mio,  _ have you not noticed?” 

“Noticed what?”

“Grief and stress sped up your cycle. Your body knows you lost your mate, that you have a child. Now you feel safe, and your body is trying to find someone that can take care of you and Altaïr.”

“My body is what?”

Apparently Edward’s parents skipped parts of his education on being an omega, because Maria goes on to explain in depth what his body is going through now. She also informs him that it will be one of the worst heats of his life, because the sudden absence of an alpha, his mate,  after being consistently taken care of for the past five years will wreak havoc on his body. 

“It will want Umar,” Maria says, eyes impossibly sad. “And when he is not there, your body will overcompensate for his loss. You will need an alpha, it will be nearly impossible for you to make it through this without one. You could do it, but it would be brutal.”

“Where am I going to find an alpha on such short notice?” Edward asks, voice far too desperate for his liking. “I don’t even want an alpha, I can’t – I can’t lose someone, not again, Maria. I’ve lost too many in my life.” 

Maria thinks for a long moment, pouring them more tea. “If I could find you somebody, an alpha with no intentions beyond helping you, would you accept them?”

“Do I have a choice?” Maria stares at him, waiting for a proper answer. Edward sighs. “Yes, Maria, I would. “

“Give me one day,” she says. 

Edward agrees. 

//

The alpha Maria finds is her husband. When she tells Edward, the next day, he nearly falls over in shock. 

“Giovanni’s alright with this?” he says. “ _ You’re _ alright with this?”

Maria waves her hand. “I trust him. This way, you will be with someone you trust, and you know Giovanni will not force you to be anything you don’t want to be.” 

“And if there is a child?” Edward almost doesn’t want to hear her response. 

“He will take responsibility. He will care for you and the child, as long as you allow it.” 

Three days later, when his heat hits fully, Giovanni is at his door, and Edward is grateful because Maria was right, and this heat is a bad one. 

“How do you feel?” Maria asks when he emerges from the bedroom, four days later. She’s sitting at the table with Altaïr and Federico, her three-year-old son. Altaïr greets his mother without looking up from his book, and Maria continues to cut up Federico’s food for him. 

“Like you would expect,” Edward mumbles, sitting carefully and glancing at the pages of Altaïr’s book. “Are you reading Italian?”

“Signora Auditore is teaching me, Mama. It’s similar to Spanish,” Altaïr responds, flipping a page. 

“Right,” Edward replies faintly. At least learning a new language is productive. It will keep Altaïr distracted for a while. 

“Mamá, can I write Malik a letter? I want to tell him about Italy.” 

Edward can’t help but smile at that. Altaïr can pretend all he wants, Edward knew he didn’t actually hate Malik. “Of course you can, kid. Try to be vague, though. We don’t want our location to be spread around too far.”

Altaïr hums in agreement, turning back to his book. When he hands Edward a letter later that day, Edward adds a letter to his mother before handing them off to Giovanni. 

Edward’s plan was to stick around Italy until he could figure out how to get to England, and then stay with his mother for a bit. He doesn’t want to risk that until he knows if he’s pregnant or not, so that leaves him with nothing to do for several weeks until anything can be confirmed. 

Maybe he would learn Italian with Altaïr. It could be a useful skill, if he’s going to be here for as long as he expects. 

//

When Ezio is born, shy of nine months later, there’s a moment where the midwives fall silent and Edward knows something is wrong. 

His relief when Giovanni takes the baby and whispers something in Italian to him, and the baby finally moves, letting out a cry, nearly causes him to cry himself. 

Giovanni hands the baby to him, and Edward stares down at the bundle in his arms. 

Edward didn’t mention this to Giovanni, but the entire pregnancy he was terrified of this day. Alima had borne two healthy children, had an uneventful pregnancy, and then she was gone, her child with her. Mary didn’t die in childbirth, but she died because of it. 

The thought of it happening to him, of leaving Altaïr without both of his parents . . . 

It’s done now, though. Edward’s still here, the baby’s alive, and Edward was so scared he never thought of a name. Shit, he doesn’t have a name. 

He looks up at Giovanni, and the alpha must see something in his face because he smiles gently and says, “What about Ezio?”

Edward is nodding before he’s really thinking about it. It isn’t until a few days have passed that he thinks to ask what it means. Maria gives him a look from where she’s reading to Federico but doesn’t respond, waiting for her husband to answer. 

“He’s a fighter, like all Auditore men, so he must have a strong name. Ezio means eagle.” Giovanni seals an envelope, and adds, without looking up, “Anyone else have letters to send?”

“What is with Assassins and naming their children after  _ eagles?” _

“What do you mean, Edward?” Maria says calmly, placing Federico on the ground, where the toddler immediately proceeds to wander towards his toys left on the floor. 

Edward jerks his head towards Altaïr, where his oldest is busy writing to Malik. “Umar named him ‘flying eagle’!” 

Maria looks like she’s trying not to laugh, one hand over her mouth. Her husband doesn’t bother trying to hide his amusement, throwing his head back and laughing. 

If Edward ever has another child, he is the one naming it. No one else. He doesn’t want another child named after an eagle.

//

Ezio is the polar opposite of Altaïr. Altaïr has always been fairly calm, and in the years after his father’s death it’s become more pronounced as he shuts the door to his childhood, although his temper is a problem. Part of that is his similarity to his father, the other part is being raised with Assassins. Ezio, on the other hand, shows all the emotions that Altaïr hides, and is far more vocal than Altaïr was at his age. 

When Claudia is born, two years after Ezio, Edward gets the urge to leave. To move. It’s what got him out of England, what kept him taking missions in Spain, and part of the reason he fled to Italy instead of going back to his mother. 

The Auditore palazzo is full of people at all times of the day, between the Auditores, Edward, Altaïr, any associates that come by. Edward sometimes feels trapped now that Giovanni is taking the time to give Altaïr training and Ezio is no longer dependent on Edward all the time. 

It gives Edward too much time to think, and when he thinks he looks for a way out.  He considers going to England, seeing his mother again, but in the end he discards it. Ezio is far too young for a trip that long, and he won’t leave him behind. 

So he stays. 

Eventually Giovanni notices his restlessness. He gives Edward things to do around the city, sending him on errands to help the Brotherhood. It gives him something to do and gets him out of the house for a couple hours a day. It’s enough for now. 

Altaïr is fifteen when Petruccio is born, and it isn’t hard for Edward to realize his oldest is itching to leave Italy. He wants to prove himself, something he can’t do here with the training Giovanni can provide. 

“My brother Mario could take him in,” Giovanni suggests one night, after all the children are in bed, even Altaïr. “He’s more active on missions than I, can provide more training.”

Edward is staring into the fireplace, watching the flames dance. “I don’t think it will help. He’s writing Malik more. I think he wants to go back to Spain. He thinks he needs to prove himself to the Assassins there, prove that we didn’t leave because we couldn’t handle the life of an Assassin. We’re both omegas, Giovanni, and there weren’t many of us involved with the Brotherhood in Spain.”

“If he asks,” Giovanni says after a moment, “would you let him go?”

“I wouldn’t have a choice,” Edward says. “He’s too much like me. If I don’t let him, he’ll hate me and do it anyways.”

Days after this, Altaïr approaches him cautiously. Edward had been prepared, written a letter to his mother to tell her of his plans, and just had to wait for Altaïr. 

“Mother, can we talk?”

“Of course, Altaïr,” Edward says. He sets down the book he had been reading and waits for Altaïr to speak up. 

“I want to return to Spain,” Altaïr says, and Edward is proud of how steady his voice is. “I want to return to the Assassins.”

“Okay. You can go,” Edward adds when Altaïr looks confused. “But first, I want your grandmother to see you. You can go, on the condition that you come to Britain with me so your grandmother knows I haven’t been lying to her for the past ten years.” 

Altaïr is nodding before Edward even finishes the first sentence. After he leaves, Edward goes and finds Ezio, pulling him away from his half-siblings and cuddling him for a long time, staving off the panic he feels at sending Altaïr back to Al Mualim. 

Ezio is too young to understand what’s happening, only that his mother is giving him cuddles, which is his favorite thing. 

//

The day they leave for England, Ezio is too excited by the carriage to realize his father and his siblings and his Zia Maria aren’t coming with them. It isn’t until they’ve left Firenze that he realizes, and by then Altaïr is quick to distract him and keep his mind off it. 

Weeks later, Edward finds himself in front of his mother for the first time in over fifteen years. The stress of paying the bills without his father has taken its toll on her, and he almost doesn’t recognize her for a second. Then he hears her voice, speaking to a customer in the tavern she’s working at, and everything he had been holding back for years comes flooding back. 

He waits until she’s at the bar, relaying orders to the bartender, before he approaches her, Altaïr following and holding Ezio’s hand. “Mother,” he says softly, and Linette whips around with wide eyes as she takes him in. 

“Edward,” she whispers, and then tears spring to her eyes as she throws her arms around him. He wraps his own arms around her slim waist, buries his head in her neck to hide tears of his own. They remain in this position for a minute or so, and then she pulls back, turning her gaze on Altaïr and Ezio. “I assume these are my grandchildren.”

Edward nods. When Ezio was born, he wrote his mother, but neglected to mention Ezio’s father. It didn’t occur to him at the time – he was still recovering, coping with the fact Ezio nearly didn’t make it – and she made her own assumptions because he didn’t date the letter, or mention how old Ezio was at the time, or the timing of his heats. Altaïr and Ezio share almost the same coloring, and Linette never met Umar so she couldn’t know what each child inherited from which parent. 

“Let me look at you,” Linette says, gesturing for Altaïr to come closer. His son complies and allows Linette to embrace him before she moves on to Ezio, who is now trying to hide behind Edward’s legs. 

Linette takes them home after her shift, and Ezio has warmed up to her enough to hold her hand on the walk there. 

Edward puts Ezio down for a nap, and Altaïr sets out to explore the area while Linette makes tea for her and Edward. 

Linette asks questions about Umar, the West Indies, Spain and Italy. Edward answers without giving away anything that could incriminate him in her eyes, such as being an Assassin, his son being an Assassin, his late husband being an Assassin.

Essentially, he tells her the bare minimum, and when her questions get more specific, he starts lying. 

“I wish I could have met the alpha who got you to settle down,” Linette says finally, pouring herself another cup of tea. “After Caroline, you were so heartbroken. I wasn’t sure you would recover.”

Edward takes a sip of tea and pointedly doesn’t think about the truth of his and Umar’s relationship, how they didn’t even get married until it became almost a necessity. He did love his husband though – they wouldn’t have mated if he didn’t – so it isn’t hard to pretend they married before Altaïr was born, that they married because they loved each other and not because Edward was at risk of being hanged, that Umar lived a life so dangerous they had to make sure Altaïr would be returned to Edward in the event that something happened. Although looking back, Al Mualim may never have bothered, may have just brought Altaïr into the Assassins completely without ever letting Edward know what had happened.

Altaïr returns in time for dinner, answers Linette’s questions on what he’ll be doing in Spain. “My father was a merchant,” he says, and Edward is glad he paid attention to something Edward was saying on the trip here, “when he died we left behind the shop, gave it to a family friend. I think it’s time it returns to the family.”

Linette smiles softly. “I know you’ve probably heard it before, but I’m so sorry about what happened to your father. I never met him, but he sounds like a good person.”

“Thank you, Grandmother,” Altaïr says quietly. Linette starts telling her own stories as Altaïr lapses into silence, and Edward focuses on getting Ezio to eat his food and not wear it.

//

Altaïr stays for two weeks, getting to know his grandmother and hearing stories about Edward when he was a child. He watches Ezio while Linette is at work, and Edward is out trying to find a solution for his mother’s suffering. 

The house is falling apart, or at least to Edward it is. The roof - already worn when Edward lived here - now consistently leaks, there are multiple drafts surrounding the windows and door, and the furniture is beginning to break down from repeated use.

Linette is too proud to accept handouts. After being alone for so long, it’s second nature to her. And Edward can’t stay forever, Ezio needs his father. 

He finds a solution in Tessa Stephenson-Oakley. 

Tessa is an alpha woman, helping her father with some of his properties. Edward runs into her while walking home, nearly knocks her over. 

“I’m so sorry, Miss – I’ve been so distracted lately, I must not have been paying attention –“

She waves him off. “It’s alright, truly. I’ve been a little lost lately as well, I’m just as much to blame as you are.”

It isn’t long before they start talking, and the next thing he knows, he has a solution. Or, part of a solution. 

Tessa has no problem getting her father to rent one of his houses to the Kenway family, and it’s affordable enough for Edward considering he’s barely touched any of the money he brought back with him from the West Indies after putting it in the bank. They lived a comfortable life in Spain without it, and he only ever used it to pay for passage to Italy. The problem comes with getting his mother to leave her home. 

She’s spent decades of her life in that house; it’s where her husband lived and died. She knows the area, her neighbors, and she sees a home, where Edward only sees a woman that deserves better. 

He tries bringing up the subject once, after Ezio’s in bed, and it nearly blows up in his face before he concedes the argument. 

He almost gives up, almost tells Tessa he can’t do it. His mother is too stubborn. 

“What if she didn’t have to leave?” Tessa muses one afternoon, when they’re sitting in a park watching Ezio pull up grass. 

“What?”

“Your mother. She may not have to leave her house,” Tessa says, sitting up straight. There’s a light in her eyes as she thinks through whatever idea she has. “You want her to have a better life, but she won’t leave. So what if we bring a better life to her?”

“How?”

“Fix up the house. You said it yourself, she won’t leave it. We could clean it up, add a few things. My father knows people who can help. It could be done in a single day,” she explains. 

That’s what they do. Days before he leaves, Edward tasks Altaïr with keeping Linette distracted for the entire day. Then Tessa comes with a small army of people, and they set to work on the house, cleaning it up and replacing anything that’s broken, or on the verge of breaking. 

Edward takes Ezio out to the garden and has him pulling up weeds around the vegetables. When Ezio becomes bored, he wanders off and starts playing in the dirt. 

When Altaïr finally brings Linette home, the work is finished. The house is the same, except it’s a little cleaner, and a little sturdier, and a little nicer, and Linette cries when she opens the door. 

“You didn’t have to do this, Edward,” she says, voice choked. 

“It’s what Father would have wanted for you, Mother,” Edward responds, and that sets her off again. 

The next day Edward finds Tessa while Linette is at work. “Thank you,” he tells her.

“She liked it?”

“She cried she loved it so much.” Edward smiles. “You’re a good person, Tessa. I’m glad I met you.”

Her answering smile is soft when she says, “I’m glad I met you, too.”

After that, Edward encounters a problem. In another world, he can see himself marrying Tessa, being happy with someone again like he was with Umar. It’s been long enough, and Umar would want him to be happy, to move on from him. 

Except he has Ezio. If he married Tessa, Ezio would be missing a parent, whether it be Edward or Giovanni. Edward can’t do that, he can barely even think about it. It was hard enough leaving Altaïr when his life was in danger, he could never do it now. He also can’t keep Ezio from Giovanni. 

He resolves to push it from his mind. In another life, yes. Not this one. 

Except Tessa decides that’s not what she wants. 

“I want to marry you, Edward,” she says one day, and Edward nearly falls over.

“What? Why?”

She gives him an odd look. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re a good person, Edward, you clearly love your family. You’re great with your sons.”

“I’m not a good person, Tessa, you don’t know the things I’ve done. I’ve lied, stolen, I’ve hurt people before. You don’t want me,” Edward tells her desperately. Anyone else in his position would be jumping at the chance to marry this brilliant woman, but he can’t imagine a world where that could happen. 

He can’t marry this amazing woman, this wonderful alpha who already loves his children, already loves his mother.

“That’s your past, Edward. I’ve seen who you are now, and I like that man.”

“I can’t stay here, Tessa, I need to return to Italy,” he says. 

He tells her the truth. About Umar and Giovanni. He doesn’t mention the Assassins, but he figures he’s said enough to drive her away. 

Except she doesn’t leave. 

When he’s shocked into silence, she only smiles. “Did you really think that would be enough to scare me off, Edward? I don’t care that your children have two different fathers, and why should I?”

“Well, damn.” He shakes his head a little. 

He doesn’t think anyone could judge him for falling for this woman. They’re married within a couple months, after a far longer stay than Edward was expecting when he left Italy. 

His mother cries at the wedding – a proper wedding, not that his and Umar’s wedding wasn’t proper. They had a priest – a Christian one, the only person they could find on such short notice – and witnesses, but his wedding to Tessa is vastly different. His mother is there, crying silently and dabbing at her eyes. The church is far bigger, rather than the small place that passed for a church for the Assassins. 

The ceremony is also in English, not that that truly matters. 

Afterwards, Tessa breaks ties with her parents – who, once again, did not approve of Edward, which seems to be a trend with the women he loves – and arranges their trip back to Italy.

// 

Life returns to normal in Italy, or as normal as it could be considering he left with two children and returned with one child and a wife. It was also difficult to explain why they were going to Italy to his mother, because he still wouldn’t tell her about Ezio’s true parentage. 

Tessa refuses to take Giovanni’s job offer when they arrive. “I appreciate it, truly, but I want to do this myself. We can find our way ourselves.”

Giovanni and Maria instead insist they stay with them, which neither Edward nor Tessa can deny once they hear the Auditore’s reasoning.

“Ezio is already here,” Maria says. “His mother should be here as well.”

Altaïr writes from Spain periodically. He says he’s doing well, working hard in his training. Edward helps Giovanni again, doing small things for the Brotherhood that don’t involve him leaving the country. When he’s not doing that, he helps Maria with the children. 

“Have you thought about children?” she asks one day after putting Petruccio and Claudia down for their naps. She’s sitting in front of the fire, and Edward is across from her helping Ezio read a book. 

He gives her a look, showing how unimpressed he is. “I think I have enough to worry about with this one, don’t I? We don’t even have our own house yet, Maria, I don’t think we’ll be having one any time soon.”

Maria hums. “We’ll see.”

Leave it to Maria to predict the future, because not even two weeks later, Edward realizes he’s pregnant again. Maria gives him a radiant smile that he does not return. 

Tessa takes the news well, considering they still don’t have a house and they’re adding another child into a household that already has four. 

“We’ll be fine, Edward,” she says calmly. Edward tries to believe her. 

In the end he has to, because his wife is determined to make it work. Edward finds her in their bedroom a few days after he tells her with all her nicest dresses spread across the bed. 

“What are you doing, Tess?” he asks her, leaning against the doorway and watching as she tilts her head in consideration. 

“Providing for my family,” she says, apparently making a decision. 

“What? Tessa, what are you doing?” Edward straightens and approaches her as she begins to fold the dresses neatly. He grabs her hand, stalling her progress when she doesn’t respond. 

She turns to him fully, looking up into his eyes. “We need our own home, love. We need the money, and what you have saved isn’t enough. I found a job, and once I prove myself to them I’ll be making more money. Until then, I will sell what I need to in order to do my job as your wife.”

Those dresses were her only link to her life in England. They were a symbol of her family’s class. 

Typically, men and women wore what was expected of them: dresses for women, trousers for men, regardless of their sex. In the lower class, however, alpha women more often wore trousers because they were usually working in the fields or doing manual labor. It wasn’t unusual for omega men to be wearing dresses, either, depending on the family they grew up in and were currently living in. 

For an alpha women of the higher class, dresses were a must because the rich were desperate to be as set apart from the poor as possible. Tessa’s parents had cut her off, leaving her only her wardrobe and some pieces of jewelry she had grabbed before she left home. If she sold her dresses, she would lose that part of herself, because they wouldn’t be able to afford to buy more.

“But Tessa – “ 

“I know what it means, Edward. And I’ve accepted it.” Tessa’s eyes soften as she raises her hand to stroke his jaw. “I am making my own life here, Edward, with you and our child, one separate from my past and my parents. I will do whatever I can to make this a life deserving of your love.”

Edward closes his eyes and leans forward to place his forehead against hers. “I don’t deserve you,” he murmurs, and she kisses him in response before pulling back to return to the bed. 

“These are fine quality,” she says, mostly to herself. “They will sell well, and I will take some of that money to buy new clothes that will be much cheaper, and the rest will go towards the house.”

“Buy fabric,” Edward says, startling her out of her daze. “Mother taught me to sew as a child, I still have the skills. I can make you the clothes for much cheaper.”

Tessa’s grin is brilliant in response. “This is why I love you,” she tells him, surprising a laugh out of him. 

“For my sewing skills?”

“No, love, because you see things differently from me, and it’s why we’re so great together.”

//

Tessa loses some of her optimism when it turns out they’re having twins, but they’re born in their own house, purchased after months of hard work on Tessa’s part and a lot of sewing on Edward’s. It’s smaller than the Auditore palazzo, but it’s theirs, and that’s all that matters.

“You’ve given me two beautiful sons, Edward,” Tessa whispers next to Edward. She’s holding the second child, gazing down at him with such awe that Edward knows he just lost his place as the most important person in her life. 

“We only have one name for a boy,” Edward points out, looking down at the first child in his own arms. 

“Haytham.” Tessa nods, glancing at the child Edward holds. “That’s Haytham, like you wanted. This one, I think, should be Connor.”

Tessa leans in closer so Edward can see his youngest son and the omega smiles. “Connor and Haytham. I like it.”

They find a balance. Tessa and Edward keep busy working and raising Haytham and Connor, Ezio spends some nights with Edward and some with Giovanni, and Altaïr writes often enough that Edward doesn’t think he’s been killed. 

Altaïr, in the two years he’s been there, has proven what he set out to. Soon he’ll be rising through the ranks, just like Umar predicted he would all those years ago. He’s unbelievably proud of what his son has done, and he knows Umar would be too. He makes sure Altaïr knows that when he writes him back, even if Altaïr doesn’t necessarily want to hear it. 

Altaïr had been raised to be an Assassin. It was what he was meant to do. That was a decision that had been made the second Edward left when he was a toddler, but somehow the issue had never come up between he and Giovanni with Ezio. 

It does when the boy is eight years old and he gets into his first fight with Vieri de’ Pazzi.  

The Auditores are a prominent family in Firenze. That being said, most everyone knew of Giovanni’s children. They also knew that Ezio was not Maria’s. 

With Ezio going out more often, making friends of his own, it was bound to come up eventually. 

“He was insulting you, Mamma,” Ezio tells him that night, wincing when Edward touches the wet cloth to the side of his bruised face to wipe off the dirt. “And Zia Maria.”

“Thank you for protecting us, Ezio, but it’s not your job,” Edward says softly, putting down the cloth and touching his son’s face. “Listen to me. It’s good you’re loyal to your family. It shows what a good man you will be someday. But a good man also doesn’t fight unnecessarily.”

“How will I know if it’s necessary, Mamma?”

“You’ll know at the time. Each situation is different, Ezio. You have to decide on each case whether words or fists are more appropriate.” 

“Being a man sounds hard,” Ezio says, scrunching up his nose, and Edward laughs. 

“You’ll get used to it.”

He puts Ezio to bed, then goes to find Giovanni. 

“I said he was a fighter, did I not?” Giovanni says, and Edward nearly hits him. 

“You did.” Edward sighs. 

“You are wondering if we should train him,” Giovanni says when Edward can’t find the words. 

“Altaïr was already training when he was Ezio’s age,” Edward replies. “He was also living with Assassins, but he was still training.”

“I am planning on teaching Federico, Claudia, and Petruccio when the time is right. Ezio would be included, if that is what you want. It is your decision.” 

They fall into silence for a few moments, the only sound the fire crackling and Giovanni writing. “Alright,” Edward finally says. “We’ll do it, but when he’s older. We’ll teach him how to protect himself, but I don’t want him knowing about the Brotherhood until he’s old enough to decide on his own whether he joins or not.”

“That is reasonable,” Giovanni agrees. 

Like that, it’s decided, and Edward returns home to his wife, and he doesn’t have that conversation with her until the twins turns five, although it’s a very different conversation. 

“I hate it just as much as you do, Tess, but the fact is they’re alphas, male alphas, and they’re going to get in a fight eventually. Ezio wasn’t much older than them when he started fighting. I just don’t want them to get hurt when they do.” Edward feels like he’s pleading for a lost cause, but he can’t leave the boys with nothing. 

And even Tessa, for as proper as her upbringing was, knows how to use a sword, can try to protect herself and defend her family even though she hasn’t touched a weapon in years. It’s the trademark trait of all alphas: their protective instincts over their family are so strong they’ll do anything it takes to keep them safe. Edward’s father never showed his alpha instincts to his wife and son, but Edward sees it in Ezio, who is constantly fighting the other children on Edward’s behalf. He saw it in Umar, a little, in what he sacrificed to keep Altaïr and Edward safe. If they don’t teach the twins, it will do more harm than good.

Tessa finally consents to Edward teaching the twins, and the relief that washes over Edward nearly has him falling over. 

//

Altaïr becomes a Master Assassin at twenty-three, one of the youngest ever. Ezio is eleven and getting into more trouble than ever before, something Giovanni tries to combat by teaching him about being a banker. He’s not incredibly successful, but it keeps him out of trouble for a little while each day, which keeps Edward happy. 

Haytham and Connor, at six, are improving at the basic training Edward is giving them. Ezio sometimes joins in when he needs something to do, and he enjoys picking on his little brothers far too much. 

Life is normal, though. Edward helps Giovanni with Assassin business, does his own research into the First Civilization, and raises his children. 

It’s one such normal day when Edward opens a letter from Altaïr. His mood plummets the second he reads the first line. 

_ I messed up, Mamá.  _

Altaïr hasn’t called him that since – since Ezio was born, at least. 

_ Malik, Kadar, and I were sent out on a mission. We were to retrieve an artifact from the Templars, and it went wrong. I wasn’t myself, Mamá. Father warned me, all those years ago, and I dismissed his words.  _

_ Kadar died, Mamá. And it’s all my fault. Malik lost his arm. He won’t talk to me. Al Mualim demoted me and is sending me out to take care of problem people in the neighboring cities. It’s a punishment, but I deserve so much worse. I have the chance to work up the ranks again. Kadar never will.  _

_ Father was right. I’m Al Mualim’s favorite. I shouldn’t have come back. Kadar would still be alive then. _

Shit. Shit, Altaïr. And Malik, losing his brother. 

He writes a letter back, even though anything he says won’t bring Altaïr any solace. Altaïr’s on his own for that, even though there is nothing Edward wants more than to go to his son. He can’t leave the twins and Tessa, and he can’t bring them without explaining to Tessa what he’s really involved in. 

His wife may know some of the details of his past, but she doesn’t know everything, and he intends to keep it that way. It’s why, for the few missions he still goes on, he uses Kenway or Ibn’La-Ahad as his name instead of Tessa’s. It’s one of the few ways he can protect her.

He does ask Giovanni to listen for any news from the Spanish Brotherhood. He’ll take anything. 

//

A year after that first letter, Altaïr finally clears up the situation. Not by letter, which is what Edward had been expecting, but by showing up at Edward and Tessa’s door and nearly causing Edward to hit the floor with shock. 

“Altaïr?” 

Altaïr smiles, a little uncertainly, looking worse for wear but alive, and that’s all that matters as Edward pulls him into his arms. “I went to the Auditore’s first, they told me how to get here. Ezio’s taller than I remember.”

“He was four the last time you saw him,” Edward pointed out, voice shaking a little. “What the hell happened? Why are you here?”

“It’s a long story.”

After introducing Haytham to his older brother, Edward tells him to find Tessa, who has Connor because it’s her rare day off. When Haytham tries to argue, staring at Altaïr with wide eyes, Edward gives him a stern look and says, “Find your father, Haytham. Stay with her until I tell you.”

Haytham goes. Altaïr starts explaining what he’s been doing for the last year. Apparently, Al Mualim was secretly a Templar all along, using the Assassins to get the artifact – a product left from the First Civilization – and he had been using Altaïr to take out other Templars in the area, so he could have the artifact to himself. 

“I killed him,” Altaïr says, eyes down on his hands. “And now, I don’t know what to do.” 

“Who’s taking over as Mentor?”

“Malik thinks I should. He says I’m the one who stopped Al Mualim’s corruption, so it should be me.” Altaïr’s hand twitched, almost like he was searching for his hidden blade, but the movement – his hand wasn’t moving out, it was moving in. Towards his own body.  

“And who do you think should be Mentor?” Edward asks instead of the question that’s staring him in the face. 

“Malik. He’s always been wiser than me, he would be a far better Mentor than I would be,” Altaïr reasons. 

Edward watches him for a moment in silence. “There’s another reason you don’t want to take it, isn’t there?” 

Altaïr looks up at him, panic in his eyes. “How –“ 

“I’m your mother, Altaïr, and you may have been gone for eight years but that won’t change how well I know you.”

“I’m pregnant,” Altaïr whispers. 

“Come here, son,” Edward says quietly, and Altaïr shifts so his face Is hidden in Edward’s neck. “Does Malik know?”

“Not yet.”

“What do you want to do, Altaïr? Do you want to be Mentor? Do you want to step back?”

“But if I step back –“

“Don’t think about other people, Altaïr. You stepping back wouldn’t prove anything to anyone. You already proved an omega can do anything an alpha can, you just told me that. And now they know that. So take them out of the equation. What do you want to do?”

“I want to keep doing what I’m doing,” Altaïr finally says. “I don’t – I don’t want to sit behind a desk.”

“I think you know what you’re going to do, then,” Edward says. 

“Thanks, Mamá.”

“Don’t thank me, you made the decision yourself.” Edward lets him go, stands. “I just talked. Now come, Haytham’s going to want to talk to you. And Connor.”

Altaïr writes a letter to Malik that night, telling him he’s not dead, and leaves two weeks later. In those two weeks, he becomes one of Haytham and Connor’s favorite people, which annoys Ezio to no end. 

Ezio also tells Petruccio – in confidence, the younger Auditore had said, looking like he didn’t fully understand the meaning of the word – that he thinks Altaïr fairly interesting as well. Edward laughs for several minutes at that. 

//

A couple months after Altaïr returns to Spain, Edward gets another letter. He isn’t expecting anything big – maybe the final decision on who would be Mentor – and what he gets causes him to drop his glass. He catches it right before it hits the ground, still staring at the letter. Then he shouts, “Tessa! Tess!” until his wife comes into the kitchen, looking unhappy at him yelling. 

“Altaïr’s getting married,” he says, and Tessa’s frown changes into a smile. 

“When?” she asks, and Edward shrugs. 

“He said he wouldn’t do it until I was there.” He looks at the letter, crinkled from where his fingers had clenched around it. “He said he wanted at least one parent to witness it. I’m the only one left.”

“Oh, Edward,” Tessa says, and steps forward to hold him. She knows the basics of Altaïr’s situation with Malik, that both Malik’s parents – and his brother – are dead. “You should go. Take the twins, and Ezio. I’ll stay here, watch the house.”

“Are you sure, Tess? Altaïr loves you, he would be happy to see you,” Edward tells her. But she shakes her head.

“You don’t need me for this, Edward. This is something between you and him, and his brothers.”

They leave two weeks later. 

//

Spain is familiar in a way that Edward wasn’t expecting. It had been nearly fifteen years since he had stepped foot in this country, but it had always felt more like home than nearly any other place. Part of it was Umar’s presence, but it was also the people, the culture. It was similar to the West Indies in so many ways, but it was different enough to keep him from thinking about what he lost while there. In Spain, the people around him didn’t care about his class, not like in England, and they didn’t care about his past like in Italy. 

He didn’t realize he missed that until now. 

He leads Ezio, Haytham, and Connor through familiar streets until they reach what had been Malik’s childhood home. He purposely doesn’t look at the house that he had lived in with Umar.

Altaïr meets them there with a smile and open arms. “Congratulations,” Edward tells him. 

“Thanks, Mother,” Altaïr whispers into his shoulder. 

“I’m glad you figured it out, kid,” Edward says as he steps back. 

“Malik will be busy for the next few hours,” Altaïr says as he ruffles Ezio’s hair and hugs Haytham and Connor. “He suggested checking out the library. He thinks Haytham will find something to enjoy there.”

“Ooh, Mama, let’s go!” Haytham cries, tugging on Edward’s hand. 

Edward lets Altaïr lead the way, bypassing the training grounds and the more heavily armed Assassins to avoid questions from the boys. 

Haytham quickly loses himself among the books in the library, and Connor follows Ezio while he wanders around until he loses interest and comes back to beg Altaïr to take him outside and do something. 

Edward gives him a sharp look. Ezio goes to find Haytham instead. 

“How did Malik take it, when you came back?” Edward asks. 

“He wasn’t happy with me,” Altaïr admitted. “I didn’t exactly leave with a lot of warning. But when I told him what I had on my mind, he forgave me pretty quickly.”

“You know, I’m incredibly proud of you, Altaïr,” Edward says. 

“I know, Mother,” Altaïr says, leaning a bit to the right to glance around a bookshelf when they hear a thud. 

“Your father would be proud of you, too,” Edward continues like he hadn’t heard his son speak, and Altaïr freezes a bit before he relaxes. 

“You think so?”

“I know so,” Edward confirms. “He knew you would be better than the both of us. He watched you during training, how you held your own against anyone who fought you, and he knew that you wouldn’t let anything stop you.

“I was worried, when you were born and I realized you were an omega,” Edward admitted. “I didn’t know how your father would react, having an omega son. I knew I would love you no matter what, but I never talked to him about it. He knew, though,” Edward says softly, mind in the past. “He knew I was worried about it. You were asleep, one night, and I was in the kitchen. He came up behind me, forced me to look him in the eye, and told me, ‘I do not care he is an omega, Edward. I care that he is healthy, and happy. I care that he is the better part of the both of us. And how could I be disappointed, when you are the one who gave him to me?’” Umar’s words had been imprinted into his memory, so that even over twenty years later he can still remember them.

Edward falls silent for a moment, finally looking at his eldest son, who looks startled. “That’s when I realized I loved him, Altaïr. I think I had for a long time before that, but it was that moment I knew it. Your father was one of the best men I have ever known. And there is no doubt in my mind that he would be just as proud of you as I am.”

Altaïr wraps his arms around himself, shaking a little. “I never knew,” he whispers. 

“Now you do.”

Malik finds them a bit later, when Altaïr is helping Haytham with his Spanish skills and Edward is telling Ezio and Connor some watered-down stories from his days in the West Indies. 

“Señor Ibn-La’Ahad,” Malik says, and Edward laughs a little. 

“It’s Stephenson-Oakley, technically, but you can call me Edward, Malik,” he says. “You are marrying my son, it’s only fair.” Malik flushes. 

“Hard habit to break,” he says. 

Altaïr introduces Malik to his brothers, who are staring at his missing arm. “How’d you lose your arm?” Ezio asks, and Edward immediately hits the top of his head.

“I know we raised you better than that, Ezio Auditore, where are your manners?” he scolds. 

“Sorry, Mamma,” Ezio murmurs, “sorry, Signor Al-Sayf.”

“You’re forgiven,” Malik says kindly. “But I don’t think that’s a story for tonight. It’s getting late, I’m sure you’re all hungry.”

The boys nod, and Malik tilts his head towards the door. “Let’s go then.”

The wedding happens three days after, a small ceremony. It’s barely bigger than Edward’s wedding to Umar, which is saying something because that wedding was thrown together in about ten hours. It is beautiful, and Edward refuses to admit he cries, but it’s a happy day. 

Altaïr deserves it. 

Unfortunately, while he wishes he could stay for longer, Edward needs to go back to Italy. He says goodbye to the newlyweds two days later, making sure they know they’re welcome in Italy at any time, and then he herds Ezio and the twins onto the ship for the journey home. 

It will be the last happy memory he will have for a while. 

//

They arrive in Italy late in the evening, so Edward decides to take Ezio home with him instead of dropping him off at the Auditore’s. It isn’t until it’s too late that he realizes something is wrong. 

The door is unlocked. Tessa would never have left it unlocked. 

He pushes the boys behind him immediately, steps further into the house to see a table knocked over. “Shit,” he breathes, then turns to his sons. “Ezio, take your brothers and run. Go straight to your father, tell him to come here immediately. And do not, under any circumstances, come back with him. You stay there with Zia Maria, do you understand?”

Ezio nods, face pale, and grabs Haytham and Connor’s arms and pulls them out the door. Edward goes to the kitchen, grabs a knife – it’s the closest room, and he doesn’t know if there’s anyone in the house -  and starts looking for his wife. 

He finds his study first, with everything knocked over and books torn apart. He knows what they were looking for – his journal on the First Civilization – and they probably found it, but he can’t focus on that right now. 

Edward finds her in their bedroom down the hall, bleeding out on the floor. Her face is pale, dark hair loose; her arms are wrapped around her stomach, trying to slow the bleeding. One of Edward’s swords lies next to her, blood-stained.  Edward drops the knife. 

“Tessa,” he whispers. “No, no, Tessa, I’m so sorry –“

“Edward –“ she coughs, and blood stains her teeth. 

“This is my fault, I never should have left you, I’m so sorry, Tess,” Edward says desperately, gathering her in his arms. “Giovanni’s coming, just hang on, love, please, please.”

Tears are running down his face, dripping onto hers, but Tessa only smiles, or at least tries to. It turns into a grimace as pain wracks through her slim body. “I love you, Edward. Take care of our boys,” she whispers, and Edward sobs in response. 

“No, Tessa, you have to fight it, you have to stay awake, I can’t – I can’t do this without you, Tessa!”

It’s too late, though. Tessa’s body stills, and Edward screams his grief. 

Giovanni finds him minutes later, cradling Tessa’s body and his head dropped onto her chest, uncaring of the blood that is seeping into his own clothes. 

//

It takes days for Edward to come out of his catatonic state. He knows he’s in shock, but he can’t believe she’s gone. She wasn’t part of this life, she should have been safe. She was innocent. He was so careful to never involve her.

Her only crime was marrying him. 

The twins are what finally brings him out of it. Each boy is curled up on the bed with him, crying, and it’s the sound of their tears that brings him back. His arm tightens around Haytham, the one leaning on his chest, and the boy’s sobs grow louder while he reaches behind him to pull Connor in. 

“I’m so sorry, boys,” he whispers, voice rough from disuse. 

Haytham and Connor finally cry themselves to sleep, and Edward leaves them in bed and gets up to find water. He isn’t surprised to find himself in his room at the Auditore palazzo; Giovanni wouldn’t have left him alone in his own house, even if he doesn’t remember it. 

Maria is the only one in the kitchen, and she drops her glass when she sees him. It shatters at her feet, but she doesn’t seem to notice as she hurries to pull him into a hug. She whispers in Italian, and he’s so exhausted he can’t translate. 

“I am so sorry, Edward,” she finally says in English, pulling back to look at his face. 

“It’s my fault,” he mutters. “I shouldn’t have left her, I should have never even considered it.” 

“Don’t you dare,” Maria scolds. “Tessa would not want you blaming yourself. It may or may not be your fault, but that is not our job to figure out. All we can do is remember her.”

“And avenge her,” Edward adds, voice raw. “I’m going to find them, Maria.”

Her eyes are sad when she lifts her hand to his face and cups his jaw. “I do not doubt it,  _ mio caro _ , I do not doubt it.”

They make funeral arrangements. Edward writes to her parents, his mother, and Altaïr. Giovanni writes his Assassin contacts, asking for information on the Templars who came after Edward and his family, and Edward reaches out to the few Assassins he knows that aren’t family: Adéwalé, Ah Tabai. 

In the time after, waiting for responses to his letters, Edward finds it the hardest. This heartbreak is far worse than the months after Umar because Edward always knew Umar could die suddenly. Assassins aren’t known for long lives, but Tessa was never part of that, never even knew Edward’s involvement. 

Her death was so sudden. 

Haytham is too smart not to realize there was more involved with his father’s death, and Connor is starting to shut himself off from his family to protect himself. Edward finally has to sit them both down and explain, in the barest terms, the Assassin-Templar war. They accept his explanation, although Haytham seems even more suspicious afterwards. 

Paola is the one who finds the Templars. She comes to the door one morning, pulls Edward aside, and tells him, “One of my girls overheard a group of men talking about the robbery. Their leader mentioned your wife, described how he stabbed her after she got one of his men.”

“Give me names,” Edward growls. She gives them. That night, he and Giovanni hunt them down, and kill them. They even find his journal, not that Edward cares about that in the moment, but part of him knows it can’t be in Templar hands. 

//

Edward spirals after that. He doesn’t drink himself near to death like in the West Indies, after Mary’s death, but he punishes himself the only way he knows how. He goes out and gets in trouble. 

He takes dangerous missions from Giovanni – never out of the country, but he risks himself none the less. It’s probably the most active he’s been in the Brotherhood in the past fifteen years. He goes out drinking, never enough to be incapacitated, but enough to forget his pain for a couple hours. 

His children seem to do the same. Haytham loses himself in books, learning all about the Assassins from Giovanni’s library and always searching for more, as if by knowing everything he could have saved Tessa. Connor, instead, turns to training, pushing himself harder and harder until he is exhausted every day. Edward can barely find the words to try and comfort the twins, keep them from doing what they’re doing. 

One thing all his children inherited from him: his self-destructive tendencies.

He meets William Miles on a mission, a year after Tessa’s death. A beta who thinks himself an alpha, William comes in from nowhere and nearly causes Edward to lose his target. 

The fight afterward is explosive. William thinks himself better because Edward is an omega, which clearly means Edward doesn’t know what he’s doing. Edward is about to prove just how capable he is when his heat hits. 

Over the years, his heats have become more mild, meaning he didn’t necessarily need someone to help him through them, but it is far easier with someone. Over the years, they have also become more spread out, more difficult to track, and that’s the only reason he took this mission – if he had known it was coming, he would have stayed home.

He gives William an ultimatum. “Help me through my heat, and I won’t tell your Mentor what happened here tonight.”

William, a young man and a novice, takes him up on his offer. 

Before William leaves, two days later, he looks back at Edward. “Don’t tell me if there’s a child,” he says, and Edward is all too quick to agree. Besides, the chances that there will be a child are very low in this point of Edward’s life. 

Of course, him thinking that makes sure that he was wrong, and Desmond is born nine months later. 

//

Desmond is four when Edward’s life falls apart again. 

While Edward had been forced to step back from the Assassin life – probably for good – when Desmond was born, because he had three children to raise on his own, Giovanni had increased his own involvement. Federico, now twenty, was finally being introduced to the Assassins, although he didn’t go on missions. Ezio, although old enough to know, hadn’t been told yet because Edward had been too busy with the twins and Desmond and Giovanni had promised they would tell their son together.

It was a normal day. Desmond was scribbling pictures, sitting on the floor, while Haytham and Connor were out, probably getting into trouble, probably with Ezio, but Edward is too tired to truly care at the moment. If Ezio is with them, he’ll keep them safe at least. 

Eventually Edward makes dinner, and Haytham and Connor come back in time to eat. After cleaning up, he reads with Desmond, leaving Haytham and Connor on their own until he puts Desmond to bed. Then he makes the twins work on their Spanish – their Italian and English are fine, but they still have difficulty translating the letters Altaïr writes them – until he sends them to bed. 

He stays up for a few hours, doing odd jobs around the house while the children are out of the way, then finally goes to bed himself. 

It isn’t until the next morning that he hears what happened, and only when Ezio comes tearing into the house in full Assassin robes, panic in his eyes. 

“What happened?” Edward demands. 

“They took them – they took Federico and Petruccio, and Father and they – they hanged them! I did what Father asked, I found the papers that cleared their names, and it didn’t matter!” 

Ezio finally calms down enough to answer Edward’s questions – Maria and Claudia are safe, they’re with Paola, yes, they were looking for Ezio. 

“Who did you give the documents to?” 

“Uberto Alberti.”

Edward swears. If Alberti, a man who Giovanni believed to be loyal, betrayed them, then who else was secretly a Templar?

“Go to Paola,” Edward says. “She’ll help you for tonight, keep you safe. And when the time comes, do what you think is right. When you can, take Maria and Claudia, and get them out of the city. I’ll meet you at your uncle Mario’s, in Monteriggioni, alright?”

Ezio nods slowly. “Mother, do you know something else that I don’t?”

“Go, Ezio, I’ll explain everything at Mario’s.”

Ezio goes. Edward packs. 

If they went after Giovanni’s family, and Ezio was still wanted, it would only be a matter of time before they came searching around Edward. It’s common knowledge Ezio’s his son, and the Templars would jump at the chance to take out Edward after what happened with Tessa and his journal. 

He has no choice but to leave, because he can’t risk his children falling into harm’s way. 

//

Edward wakes the boys early the next morning, after spending the day and night packing and making arrangements. Desmond won’t wake up enough, so he sleeps on Edward’s shoulder, leaving Edward one less arm to carry bags with. Connor – already bigger than his brother, a fact that infuriates Haytham because Connor is younger – takes the last one.

It isn’t hard to slip past the guards – to them, Edward is just another omega with children, and they don’t look close enough to recognize Edward’s face. 

It takes a couple days to reach Monteriggioni, and he explains what happened to Haytham and Connor. Desmond doesn’t care, wandering off when Edward isn’t looking to explore while they walk. 

Edward has never actually met Mario Auditore, oddly enough, but he knows it won’t be hard to find him as long as he’s at the villa. 

They’re in luck. Mario is outside, overseeing training, when they arrive. Edward approaches him slowly, but Mario only grins at him. “ _ Buongiorno,  _ Edward,  _ si?  _ I was wondering when I would finally meet you!”

“Something happened, Mario, we need to talk,” Edward says, glancing around at the multiple men training. 

“Follow me, then, come along. The children can play in the garden, they’ll be safe there,” Mario adds, and Edward gestures for the twins to take Desmond. 

Edward follows Mario into the man’s study. It doesn’t take long for Edward to explain what happened in Florence, and Mario takes action quickly. 

“We’ll be prepared for Ezio’s arrival,” he says. “In the meantime, we have the space for you and your children. We’ll have to clear out some of the rooms, but that won’t be hard.”

“Haytham and Connor will help,” Edward says. “They’ll need something to occupy them. I have to write my other son, tell him what happened.”

“You can have my study,” Mario tells him. “I’m going to talk to my men.”

Haytham brings Desmond to Edward before going off to help Connor with whatever Mario assigned to them. Edward sets him to practicing his letters and then writes to Altaïr, telling him what happened and warning him he might have some visitors soon. 

When Ezio arrives, two days later, Mario brings him to where Edward was preparing the last room at the top of the villa. This would be Ezio’s, if he decided to stay.

“Mother,” Ezio says as Mario leaves them. 

“I’ll answer your questions, Ezio,” Edward says as he turns to his son. “But first, what of Uberto?”

A dark look crosses over Ezio’s face, before it vanishes and leaves behind only the young man Edward knows. “I took care of him,” Ezio tells him. 

Edward gestures for Ezio to sit, and then proceeds to explain what his son had been born into, what had taken multiple people from Edward’s life, what it meant that Giovanni had been betrayed. 

“There are more people out there like Uberto?” Ezio finally asks. 

Edward nods. “Over time, and with dedication, the Templar presence can be eradicated in an area, but they always manage to come back. It took me four years, with help, to take out the Templars in the West Indies, and that was only a small area. Giovanni had been working for years to do the same in Italy, but the Templars here have too much power. With four children, and with the Assassins spread out so far, he couldn’t do enough to keep them at bay.”

Ezio looks down at his hands, the hidden blade on his wrist. “Your father always wanted to tell you what it was he truly did. It was my fault he hadn’t yet. I didn’t want you growing up in this life, because I had seen the effects of it with Altaïr. He held off for me, and we would have told you soon, but we couldn’t find a good time for the conversation.” Edward reaches out to touch his son’s shoulder, causing Ezio to look up at him. “I wish I could have prevented this, Ezio. Maybe if I had told you, they would be alive. We will avenge your father and brothers, and we will remember them.”

Later, they meet Mario again, and Edward watches as his son gets proper training from his uncle. Edward and Giovanni had done their best, but they almost always taught hand-to-hand because Tessa hadn’t wanted the twins handling a sword until they were older. It was easier to keep all three boys practicing the same thing.

When the training session is done, Mario pulls Ezio to the side of the ring. Edward is close enough he can still hear their conversation, but he turns to watch Desmond chase the twins around the garden. At four years old, he isn’t very fast compared to his thirteen-year-old brothers, but he tries and sometimes the twins let him win. 

He’s still watching them run around when Ezio responds, “I’m taking my family to Spain. They’ll be safe there with my brother.”

Mario’s resounding shout is loud enough to draw the twins’ attention, and Edward hurries over to bring them all in the house. “I think it’s time for a break,” he says, and the boys are smart enough to not complain. 

“Zio Mario isn’t happy with me,” Ezio says later that night. Edward has just put Desmond to bed, and the twins are running around the villa somewhere, probably fighting each other. “He thinks I should stay here.”

“What do you think?”

“I need to keep what’s left of my family safe,” Ezio says firmly. “I can’t risk Claudia and Zia Maria, Mother. They’ve already been through so much.”

“It’s good that you’re trying to protect them, but they would still be safe here. Mario would make sure of that. If they weren’t here, what would you do?”

“I would stay,” Ezio answers after a long moment. “I would hunt down the Templars responsible for the death of my father and my brothers.”

Edward gives him a soft look. “Then you know what you need to do, son.”

Edward leaves for Spain with the twins and Desmond a week later, leaving Claudia and Maria with Ezio. Maria is in shock and depressed over her husband and sons’ deaths, and Claudia won’t leave her mother. 

“There will always be room for you and your mother in my home if you ever decide to leave, Claudia,” Edward tells her at the docks. “You may not be my daughter, but I love you like you were.”

“Thank you, Zio Edward,” she whispers as she hugs him. 

Edward forces Ezio to promise to write, and then boards the ship with his children. 

//

When they arrive in Spain, Edward goes first to Malik’s office. Malik is signing documents, and his youngest, Sef, is drawing in the corner of the room.

Malik looks up when they come in, letting out a little sigh. “Altaïr mentioned you may be coming. We have a house set up in the compound for you, Edward. Altaïr’s out on a mission, though he should be home in a couple of days.”

He stands and walks over to them, ruffling the twins’ hair and crouching to greet Desmond. Desmond smiles widely in response, always eager for attention. 

“Come,” Malik says. “I’ll show you your house, it isn’t far.”

He calls Sef over and the boy obeys, clutching a piece of paper in his little fist. “Here, Papá,” he says, offering his father the paper. 

“Thank you, Sef,” Malik says. “I’ll put it with the others.” He walks over to his desk and sets the paper next to a drawing of what appears to be a cat, or a horse.

Malik shows them the house they’ll be staying in and invites them over for dinner because they have no food in the house. “The market will open tomorrow morning,” he says. “You should be able to get everything you need.”

Life goes on. Haytham and Connor make the decision to start actively training with the Assassins, and Edward doesn’t try to stop them. Ezio writes, tells stories of the Templars he’s taken down and shares how Claudia and Maria are faring. Claudia sometimes writes as well, complaining about Mario putting her to work by keeping the villa books. 

Altaïr comes and goes on missions, always looking for information on the Apple and the First Civilization. Edward adds anything he finds to his journal and keeps busy raising Desmond and making sure the twins don’t kill each other in their competition to best the other. 

Edward doesn’t go on missions himself. His place is with his family now because he doesn’t want to leave his children without any parents, and that’s what will happen if he dies. William is the only father still alive, but he wanted nothing to do with Desmond. Ezio and Altaïr may not need him anymore – Altaïr is a mother himself – and the twins are old enough they would be fine, but Desmond is still so young that Edward can’t bear the thought of leaving him behind. 

His mother, although long dead, would say it’s the omega instincts he suppressed all his childhood. It was only after Altaïr was born that he really allowed his instincts any control, but then he went back to sea for four years, and over the years he found various reasons to suppress those instincts again. Now, on his fifth child, he doesn’t care anymore. He’s old enough to understand his instincts and let them be. 

Looking back, this isn’t how he thought his life would go. He watches the twins spar, and sees Altaïr teaching his sons on the other side of the courtyard. Desmond is speaking to anyone who will listen, explaining his exciting dream from the night before, although he’s using a mix of Italian and English so most can’t fully understand him. Somewhere in Italy, Ezio stalks his next target. 

He never would have thought stepping on the path towards being a privateer would give him this. He never thought he would have children he adored, and never believed he could have married anyone once, let alone twice. 

Truly, he thought he would die as a privateer within months of stepping on the ship. 

He’s thankful that didn’t happen. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! I'll probably post the next part sometime within the next week - most of my major projects have been finished so I can dedicate more time to editing. At this point though, I really just want it out of my head for good, so as long as it ends up posted eventually I'll be happy.


End file.
